


If I could mend your bones I would

by cpt_winniethepooh



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Captain America: The First Avenger, Christmas, Eventual Happy Ending, Hospitals, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 12:50:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17244524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cpt_winniethepooh/pseuds/cpt_winniethepooh
Summary: Steve has a tendency of getting hurt and Bucky has a tendency of breaking down. It was bad before the serum, but it's even worse now when it shouldn't even happen anymore, especially not during Christmas.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bountifulsilences](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bountifulsilences/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Heroes are Easy, People are Hard](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16178165) by [Halbereth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Halbereth/pseuds/Halbereth), [Lorien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorien/pseuds/Lorien). 



> Gift for Bountifulsilences for the Cap Secret Santa! I hope you like it!
> 
> ETA: I am an absolute idiot who forgot to mention that this was inspired by Halbereth's awesome sic!Steve fic, People Are Easy, Heroes Are Hard. Go check it out!

It happened in a heartbeat.

Bucky saw in the corner of his eye as a red, white and blue thing blurred into a single patch of movement as it dodged, deflected and hit back, but he himself was very busy shooting off Hammer Industries robots. Tony kept mumbling into the comms that they were a disgrace to technology, and Bucky agreed readily; however, MODOK did something to them, and magic was also probably involved —Bucky  _ hated _ how he just immediately  _ thought that _ —because they were much harder to fight off than normal Hammer designs. They looked much worse, too, what with their gaudy shopping-mall Santa Claus designs, and whose idiotic idea was  _ that? _ But they moved well, had fairly good aims, and early into the fight Bucky found himself being unable to watch out for the rest of the team as he had to fight for his own life.

But then a yelp came through the comms, and he registered the red, white and blue blur falling to the ground in the distance.

"STEVE!"

"Cap!"

"Steve!"

Natasha was the closest, and she ran to cover him. Bucky concentrated on his breathing and his immediate enemies.

"He's been sprayed with something!" Natasha reported. "He's breathing but unresponsive."

"I'll get him out," Sam said, and darted down to sweep Steve up into his arms, and away, into the distance, while the rest of the group made sure they had a clean route.

 

"How is he?" Bucky asked an hour later, after they defeated the Cabal and were on their way back to the Tower. 

"He's been hit with an unknown substance," Bruce said, nervously repositioning his glasses on the hologram. Sam came back to help finish the fight, while Bruce helped Steve as the Hulk was deemed too damaging for the middle of Manhattan. "He's unconscious, but otherwise stable. We're analyzing blood samples and..."

The rest of the medical flew over Bucky’s head. The gist was that they didn't know what effects it had on Steve or how they could counter them, or why he wasn't waking up—and Bucky had to focus on taking a breath, counting for four, then releasing it, then doing it all over again. 

"He'll be fine, he's a tough one," Sam told Bucky.

Bucky bit back a nasty response about how he knew better how to deal with a sick Steve, just grunted. He may have known, once upon a time, but that was a long time ago and a much smaller, much more vulnerable Steve.

"I'm calling dr. Cho, and whoever else she recommends —Bruce, if you can send over the samples of the..." Tony began brainstorming with Bruce, and Bucky let their back and forth wash over him.

 

Steve was hooked up to a bunch of machines and monitors and to and IV stand as well. He had his own room in the hospital wing, where Bruce greeted the returning team.

"We think he's been sprayed with a calming agent intended for, well," Bruce worried the sleeve of his reindeer sweater. "The other guy. But we still don't have all the details."

They stood around the bed, sweaty and covered in grime from the fight, and watched Steve sleep.

"When will he wake up?" Bucky asked in a rusty voice.

"We don't know yet, I'm sorry," Bruce said apologetically.

Tony was the first to leave, after a few minutes of staring and standing —he dealt with stress even worse than Bruce, sometimes. He muttered something about needing a shower, instructed JARVIS to let him know if anything happened, patted Bruce on the shoulder, then walked out. 

The rest slowly followed suit, Sam the last before Bucky and Bruce.

"Change, eat something," Sam told Bucky. "He'll be alright."

"Yeah, it can wait," Bucky waved, and looked around for something to sit on.

He had the feeling Sam and Bruce exchanged a meaningful glance, but he didn't really care. He pulled up a chair next to Steve's bed, just far enough so that the nurses could get around the bed on all sides in an emergency, and half-collapsed onto it.

Sam opened his mouth but Bruce shook his head. "I'll be in the lab," he told them, and gestured for Sam to leave as well.

And then it was only Bucky, Steve, and the beeping of the machines.

 

It was sadly, devastatingly familiar.

Steve, down with something that the docs didn't understand and/or couldn't cure, and Bucky, anxious at his bedside.

At least he was in a comfortable bed now, and had the best care available that money could buy. 

Bucky's heartbeat still couldn't calm down, no matter how many breathing exercises he tried or how he curled up in the chair, legs tucked beneath his chin.

Steve must've looked similar after the Helicarriers, and that was on Bucky.

And Bucky should've looked out for him now, too. 

Just like during the war, when—

Sam knocked on the doorframe, in clean clothes, and wow, how much time did Bucky miss?

"I'll finish your shift, just go and change."

Bucky was so, so  _ exhausted _ . He wanted to argue, to never leave Steve's side —but he couldn't see where he'd get the energy from.

"Have a shower too," Sam added. "JARVIS'll let you know if anything changes and I'll keep watch."

Bucky looked from Sam to Steve. 

"I also brought you this," Sam said, and lifted a bag from his shoulder that Bucky just now noticed —the blue carrier bag for Steve's shield, filled, stretching around the circular shape.

Wow, Bucky's general awareness was  _ shot _ .

"Why me?"

"Because Steve would and will want you to have it," Sam said, and Bucky numbly took the shield from him. 

It felt completely wrong in his hands, because this weight was never meant for him. He simply wasn't worthy—

He put it down under Steve's bed carefully.

"Now listen to the professional and go," Sam ordered, and Bucky swallowed but stood and left.

 

He was back within ten minutes, of course, after a shower and in a clean set of clothes —the hoodie was Steve's, some knitted, ugly Christmas sweater thing that Bucky stole from his bedroom. He needed... he needed to feel closer to Steve, and maybe faking some holiday spirit would help his mood, too.

Sam was by Steve's side, and this time he handed Bucky a brown paperbag.

"Eat." 

Every bite tasted like sand, but when he was finished with the three sets of sandwiches, he  _ did _ feel marginally less like having been run down by a truck.

He barely noticed when Sam left, curled as he was in his chair again, as close to Steve's bed as possible.

He wished he would fall asleep, for the exhaustion to win over, but no luck —so he just stared at the limpless form of his best friend, listened to the machines, and prayed, hoped, begged for some Christmas miracle.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the WWII part of the story and also an emotional rollercoaster that goes from bad to worse, heads up. Standard WWII Bucky Barnes warnings apply.

Bucky would probably never be okay with the fact that Steve signed up behind his back to be a military experiment. He could've  _ died _ . And then he managed to get himself a unit and be sent into war. As a  _ captain _ . At twenty-five years old. 

It was insane. The last place where Steve should've been was at the front lines, where a stray bullet could rob him of his life—

No. He had his shield. 

Problem was, he also had a very bright and easy-to-identify uniform and no other weapons.

What idiot decides to march through the European Theater with a passive, defensive weapon and not even a real gun? 

Bucky's idiot, clearly.

Not that Steve was Bucky's. Steve was Steve's, and if he played his dumb smile right, he could maybe be Peg—Agent Carter's. Maybe.

Bucky would need a lot of alcohol to fake his smile for that day.

If he could find booze that  _ worked _ on him, which it hadn't. Not really. Bucky's body's been acting... weird, since—

Well, maybe his mind just needed to wrap around the fact that Steve now was taller. And broader. And stupider, incredibly enough. And that despite this, somebody decided it would be a great idea to put a pin on Steve and let him make decisions.

Steve was, on the one hand, good at making decisions. His mind was brilliant, Bucky had always known and appreciated that, and finally so were other people as well. Other people that took his delicate artist of a friend and turned him—

On the other hand, Steve was shit about self-preservation. And a unit kinda needs a leader at all times, needs someone to be sensible enough to  _ not _ to head head-first into danger and hope to punch the stupid out of the world. 

Clearly Bucky would need to be that sensible one,  _ yet again _ , because Stevie sure as hell wasn't. 

 

Bucky had almost,  _ almost _ made peace with Steve's... with Steve's new everything when shit hit the fan.

More precisely, a giant, cross-wearing robot managed to land a hit on Steve.

It began with the Howlies kind of accidentally intercepting a HYDRA convoy in the middle of a forest, except the whole mountain was nothing but one snowy, windy, cruel forest, filled with even crueler Nazis. But the group they stumbled across seemed manageable, only a dozen or so goons, so Dernier set up some explosives, Steve ordered them into formation, and Bucky took position a bit further away to the North, the wind behind his back. 

The explosives incapacitated four goons instantly, but the noise drew in another group, and those still weren't too bad odds, except for the huge robot-man whose steps made the Earth shake. 

Bucky did his damned best to shoot the goons out in between relocating after he realized the armor of the robot was bullet-resistant. But his attention was on Steve, because Steve wasn't even using his only one weapon to defend himself, but kept throwing it away. And even when he had been practicing, Bucky kept telling him what a stupid idea that was—

He relocated again and peered into the scope.

Somehow he saw the whole scene at once, like one loud, slow-motion theater production: the giant that kept firing at the Howlies, one goon that took aim at Steve, who was battling with another, and a third goon that spotted Bucky and fiddled with his own rifle to take him out.

He had a split second to decide whether he should take out the one who was aiming at him or at Steve —but who was he kidding, that never really was a question.

He fired his rifle at the goon aiming for Steve, and at the exact same second Steve threw his shield at the goon aiming for Bucky, and he used his momentum to punch down the one he was fighting with.

Bucky had a moment of immense relief and annoyance overwhelm him, and the next second the world stopped spinning.

The giant robot-man had shaken off Dum Dum and Falsworth and now was firing at Steve.

Steve's shield was still in the goon with a bullet that had Bucky's name on it, and he ducked too late. He collapsed with a horrifying shout, and for a moment, everybody stopped dead, paralyzed.

Steve didn't move.

Bucky didn't really know what happened after that. He threw all caution to the wind as he rushed at HYDRA —all of them had, like rabid dogs that were poked too much. They killed all of the goons except two and the robot, who made a hasty retreat, and the only reason Bucky didn't hunt them down was because he needed to know if Steve was alive.

He couldn't hear what the others were saying as he threw himself to the ground next to Steve and cradled him —he was breathing raggedly, but he was  _ breathing _ . Steve was  _ alive _ .

"Steve..."

The weapon, whatever it was, left no bullets but a huge wound in Steve's side, and blood was staining his uniform, and his eyes were fluttering open.

"Bucky," he whispered.

"Shit, Stevie, c'mon," Bucky urged, and somebody gave him a strip of fabric to wrap it around Steve's side, and somebody gave him a flask to help Steve drink, and Steve didn't open his eyes anymore.

 

The walk back to camp made this to Bucky's worst days of existence by a wide margin. 

They put Steve on a makeshift horder to hurry him back to camp. Gabe and Dernier carried him, and Bucky was on half-lookout for enemies and half-lookout for Steve —he was all too familiar with his unconscious face, after all.

_ THIS WASN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN _ , his mind screamed at him. Steve was—the only good thing that came out of all of this shitstorm with the experiments and Nazis was that Steve was  _ healthy _ . Not about to die any moment—

"He's gonna be alright," Dum Dum said, as if reading Bucky's mind, and Bucky just grunted.

They kept Steve warm with their own clothes and hurried as much as possible in the slippery forest. 

All of it went in a haze for Bucky: maneuvering between the trees, the snow crunching underneath their feet, owls hooting in the distance. Steve's face, white, scrunched up from pain from time to time.

And then Carter's face, equally white, when they arrived to base camp and she saw Steve. Her eyes, almost overflowing, then Bucky gave her his shield and she sprung into action.

Then Bucky wasn't let into the medic's tent until it was completely dark outside.

 

He wasn't unused to the threat of Steve's death. And he wasn't unused to death either, what with soldiers falling around him left and right.

But those two things should never have met. 

Steve should have been at home, where Bucky left him, safe and sound while Bucky fought for it to stay that way—

He paced back and forth behind some tents, hidden from view but keeping and eye out for the medics —he wanted to be by Steve's side. He needed to... the last time he saw Steve alive couldn't be while they carried him down. It just couldn't. 

Somebody hummed a song nearby, but it took a while for Bucky's brain to register the tune and the lyrics:  _ You better not cry, Better not pout, I'm telling you why... _

He could've laughed. 

Yeah, he never  _ should've _ cried, he had his sisters to support, Steve to nurse back to health after every alley fight, a job to keep, enemies to shoot...

And of course he forgot that Christmas was just around the corner. 

Lord,  _ Christmas _ . Bucky never much cared, but Steve... Steve  _ loved _ Christmas. All the beautiful lights around the city, a true Wonderland for an artist; and there must've been something about faith, too, and how Sarah Rogers, bless her soul, wanted to celebrate the birth of little baby Jesus.

And now Steve could be with Sarah again before Bucky had the chance to barter some of his cigarettes for chocolate.

He crouched down and buried his hands in his face.

No matter what, those cigarettes wouldn't help with the weird way he felt in his own body anyway. They definitely wouldn't help if Steve actually—

This would’ve been their first Christmas together since Bucky shipped out.  _ Years _ ago.

He couldn't—he couldn't do Christmas alone. Each year, over and over again, thinking about this moment.

And what was he thinking about  _ himself _ ? Steve shouldn't—Steve  _ mustn't _ die, not like this, not now —Steve was finally healthy, he finally had a body that fit his soul, he had to outlive all of them and marry Carter, probably, and have a ton of babies, and keep on fighting for freedom and justice—

He didn't recognize he was sobbing until the tears dripped down to his hands.

Yeah, you better not cry. He was pretty sure Santa would understand fearing the death of your best friend in warzones, pal.

 

He startled when someone gently touched his shoulder. He looked up —it was completely dark, but he recognized Carter. He stood hastily.

"Ma'am," he said, a lot more shakily than how he intended.

"They say Captain Rogers is stable and will recover," she said, and couldn't hide the relief from her voice.

Bucky's shoulders sagged and he wiped his face. "Thank God."

"Thank our medics," she countered. "Come."

He followed her into Steve's tent and barely noticed that she made sure nobody saw them.

"Only medical personnel and COs should be here," she said. "Pity that I don't really care."

Bucky nodded, eyes on the from on a bed. Steve may have been two sizes bigger than before, but his face was the same: the same unnerving, white, unconscious expression he was all too familiar with.

Bucky was surprised to see his own hands were shaking as he reached towards Steve. He pulled his hand back hastily.

"He'll be fine?" he whispered.

"Yes," she said. 

Bucky exhaled and relief floored him. Suddenly his bones were heavy and called him to sleep, maybe for a week, but he couldn't close his eyes and lose sight of Steve.

"I'll make sure you have a few moments with him," she said, and the entrance of the tent flapped as she left.

He sagged onto a stool and breathed in time with Steve's own, and kept looking at his face —the most precious face of his existence, to commit it to memory —until he could.


	3. Chapter 3

 

The next day, Bruce was back again —after a night that, despite Bucky's time with HYDRA, were amongst the longest of his life, and just as bad as every other time he feared Steve’s death; or maybe worse, given that the serum was supposed to help with this. Steve didn't stir much, not even when nurses came in regularly to check on him, all giving Bucky a wide berth and sad glances. But Bruce smiled at Bucky and offered a cup of hot coffee before he could say hello.

"We've been up all night, analyzing the data," he said, and Bucky noticed the dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. "And every test suggests that Steve will wake up on his own as soon as his metabolism runs down the chemicals given to him."

Bucky exhaled shakily. "And how long until then? Shouldn't he already have—"

"Well, this was intended for me," Bruce said. "Or rather, the other guy, but the dose was made for someone stronger than him. So it's expected to take a while."

"Okay," Bucky said, and his eyes kept wondering back to Steve. "But how long—"

"We don't know," Bruce said apologetically. "A few days should be normal. And..." his expression changed, and Bucky's stomach clenched again, "We think there won't be side effects, but there could be. There could always be, and we'll keep working on more analysis and maybe an antidote, but just... be aware of that. I'm sorry."

Bucky nodded. He never really —Steve just up and walking again was hardly anything Bucky was used to seeing.  _ Wanting _ to up and walk, sure, but recovering always took so long. And each ailment, each illness or injury that had him bedridden had taken something from him: the ease to breathe, or his hearing on his left ear, or his strength. 

He thanked Bruce before settling back into the chair, the coffee rapidly cooling in his hand —he wouldn't have been able to stop worrying until Steve woke up, or maybe never, no matter Bruce did or didn't tell him.

 

The Avengers came and went again. Sam brought him food which Bucky numbly ate. Everybody kept reassuring him that Steve would be okay, even though none of them knew that, but maybe that was better than if they had said that Steve's chances of making it were slim to none. But to that, at least, Bucky could've argued with all the times at his back of Steve having been predicted to need last rites soon and having been proven wrong.

Steve was a determined son of a gun.

And yet Bucky ended up spiralling down into the abyss of how a funeral would be organized in this brand new century, especially a funeral for a celebrity like Steve, and how Bucky would or could or, to be honest, could not cope with any of that, at the end of which he found himself throwing up what little lunch he had into the toilet.

If Steve... if he lost Steve again, he wouldn't be able to live on. Not again.

Which, naturally, meant that he had another reason to hate himself: worrying about  _ himself _ instead of Steve.

He more or less pulled himself together by the time Pepper showed up late afternoon, only to almost fall apart again when she announced he was to make decisions for Steve as the next of kin.

"Hopefully there won't be any decisions to make," she said apologetically. "But you should know that he officially wanted  _ you _ to make them, should we need that."

Bucky didn't say that he'd organize Steve's funeral right before his own, but it was a near miss.

 

The nurses reassured Bucky that apart from the unconsciousness, everything was all right with Steve. His heart kept beating steadily, echoing in the room thanks to the monitor, and Bucky's super-hearing also enabled him to track the small breaths Steve took. He got fluids through an IV to prevent dehydration, he was checked on by the nurses every hour, and his vitals were also monitored by JARVIS who would instantly get help if something was amiss.

And yet Bucky couldn't leave his side, no matter what people told him.

The serum was supposed to prevent this shit from happening again. But of course with the life Steve lived… it was a miracle he didn’t get hurt more often. Bucky wanted to tie him to a chair and lock him into a room where nobody could hurt him —which would be worse for Steve than death, but he would be  _ alive. _

He remembered vividly how terrified he was when Steve was hit by that Iron Cross agent in the Alps, and how he had to wait for Carter to sneak him into Steve's tent. He never again wanted to be away from Steve's bedside, to have Steve wake up without him from something life-threatening.

At least Steve hadn’t seen Bucky's breakdown back then, which was about the only positive thing of this whole mess.

 

The sounds of the hospital wing quieted during the night. Medical staff was lightly talking on the corridor, footsteps often passed the door, sometimes a cart was rolled by; but for the most part, it was only Steve's heartbeat and his breathing, and occasionally the quiet drop-drip-drip of the IV stand, that was the most prominent in the room. 

It even managed to lull Bucky into a sleep-like state: not quite awake, but not allowing himself to go deep enough, either. The chair was uncomfortable, and he'd been awake for over thirty hours at that point, but he couldn't—he couldn't leave the room to get some shut-eye.

The most he allowed himself was to ditch his shoes, pull his knees up, and rest his head a bit. Just a bit. Just a teeny, tiny...

 

He jerked awake when something touched his hair, and blinked at the world for a moment before registering that he, somehow, was half-leaning on Steve's bed now. And that Steve's hand was on his head. 

He blinked again, making sure he wasn't hallucinating, but no —and his shifting disrupted Steve's hand, and Steve opened his eyes blearily.

"Go to sleep, Buck... I'm okay," he slurred, and Bucky forgot to breathe.

Steve was  _ awake _ . Steve was awake! He had to call a doctor. He had to tell people —but that stupidly selfish voice in his head reminded him that losing Steve's touch would be inconsolable.

It took a full moment for him to realize the solution. "JARVIS," he half-whispered.

"The medical staff has been alerted," the AI replied, equally low. "They checked on the Captain when he first came to and found everything in order. If you wish, I could insist they return, but they believe this behavior is normal and we should let him rest."

Bucky's heartbeat was slowly returning to normal after the sudden spike of adrenalin, a process helped by the beeping of Steve's heart around him. 

"No, okay, thanks," he said.

"They also believe some rest would be useful to you as well," JARVIS replied cheekily, and Bucky huffed and put his head down onto his hands, and fell asleep within a minute with Steve's hand still on him.

 

"...so you may feel exhausted for a while, but your results are pretty cheerful, since most of the substance have left your system," Bruce finished the next morning, and Bucky could hardly take his eyes off of a lying, but  _ awake _ Steve who nodded along slowly.

"Thanks," he said quietly. "How long must I stay here?"

Bucky rolled his eyes and Bruce grinned.

"If you keep recovering then we'll release you the moment you're stable. A few days, at least, though."

Steve's face fell, but his eyes were already halfway closed. "I'm fine," he mumbled, and by the time he finished, his eyes were shut.

"Healing rest is the best thing right now," Bruce told Bucky in a low voice, so as not to disturb the already asleep Steve.

"I'll make sure he doesn't escape," Bucky agreed.

"I meant for you," Bruce said, then promptly left before Bucky could answer.

 

Bucky didn't leave Steve's bedside. Now that Steve was not in danger of collapsing any second, Bucky was allowed to keep his chair by the bedside even during the day instead of in the corner of the room, and he abused the privilege non-stop. Steve had a hard time keeping his eyes open for longer than a few minutes at a time, but he'd always relax when he saw Bucky —just like before. 

"I'm fine, Buck," he kept whispering, indicating that Bucky should stop worrying, but fat chance of hell was that. 

The Avengers popped in again, brought food for Bucky and cards of well-wishes for Steve (and, in Tony's case, a bunch of balloons), and Sam took watch and convinced Bucky to go change again. He still waited until Steve was awake and told him that he'd be back, and by the time he was, not ten minutes later, Steve was out like a light and the room was full of the balloons.

"He really will be fine," Sam told Bucky, completely ignoring the balloons.

"Yeah, I know," Bucky said, sitting down into his watchdog chair.

 

“You really can leave,” Steve insisted the next day. “I’ll be let out soon, too.”

“I got nowhere else to be,” Bucky shrugged nonchalantly. “And they said nothing about releasing you so soon.”

“I’ve been here for ages,” Steve whined, but cheered up when Bucky offered to play cards with him.

The doctors agreed that Steve was doing well, just needed some more monitoring in case an unforeseen side-effect occurred. The Avengers’ visits dropped to once a day, apart from Sam, who frequently popped in to tell Bucky to shower and eat while he annoyed Steve for a change.

“You haven’t been eating?” Steve asked very accusatively the first time this happened.

“I have,” Bucky protested. 

“He hasn’t left your bedside for more than ten minutes since you were brought in,” Sam said, the traitor. Bucky glared. Steve looked horrified.

“But Buck—”

“Okay, I’ll go and have a walk now,” Bucky said, and made sure smell as fresh as it gets when he got back, in case someone had a comment to make about his physical state.

 

Steve was allowed to get up a few days later, and not only because he nagged the nurses into it. Whatever he was attacked with had left his body, but also left his body a bit weaker than before. He could take short walks, but still needed to rest a lot more than before, but at least the doctors assured them that this was temporary.

It was a whole week after he was admitted into the hospital wing that he was let out.

“But you can’t be running around for a while,” Bruce reminded him when Steve put what little he had with him — his phone, some books, a tablet — into a bag. 

“I know,” Steve said. “Bucky won’t let me anyway.”

Bucky smirked. “Damn straight.”

Steve smiled at him warmly, and Bruce just sighed.

 

And Steve took being couch-bound far better than Bucky ever imagined he would. He sketched and read and watched TV without too much whining about wanting to go running, at least, and it helped that the world didn’t need urgent saving. The most physically taxing thing he did was helping Bucky decorate the Christmas tree a few days before the holiday. 

But he remained a sneaky little shit and ambushed Bucky when he least expected it: after they were done with the most recent season of  _ Doctor Who _ .

“Wanna tell me why you don’t take care of yourself when I’m down?” he asked, innocently, out of the blue. And since Bucky was coccooned under a tartan with him he couldn’t even run away.

“What?”

“Bruce, Sam  _ and _ Nat all told me, so don’t deny.”

“I was worried,” Bucky shrugged.

Steve’s eyes were shining even in the dim lights.

“But Bucky, you should still eat and sleep and—”

“Yeah, like you would,” Bucky interrupted him with a nasty laugh. 

“I’m not saying that,” Steve’s voice hardened. “But I haven’t fought literally the  _ world _ for you to just give up the moment something happens to me.”

“Don’t even think about tryn’ta guilt me, Rogers,” Bucky said warningly.

“I haven’t—”

“And for the record, I’ve been doing this since you were 8. It’s way too late to stop now.”

He looked away, not quite sure why he just said that, and he wanted to get up but Steve’s hand shot out and pulled him back.

“What do you mean?” Steve asked in a suddenly shaky voice.

“I…” Bucky sighed. “It’s hard to watch you when you’re down, when you’ve been shot or can’t breathe. I can’t… think straight.”

Steve squeezed his hand. “Don’t watch me then, please.”

“Like I could watch anything else,” Bucky whispered.

Only their breathing was audible in the room, but Bucky still could taste the tension. The fairy lights on the Christmas tree did nothing to lighten the mood.

“I hate seeing you suffer,” Steve whispered, and Bucky jerked as he looked at him. “But I can’t… I can’t  _ not _ help people, even if it gets me hurt.”

“I wouldn’t ask that from you,” Bucky said, even though he wanted to. God, he wanted to  _ a lot. _

“Maybe you should,” Steve said sadly. 

“I won’t,” Bucky said. Even if it killed him. He won’t. He can’t. That would destroy Steve.

Steve was still holding onto his hand, and now he changed position so that their fingers were laced. Bucky stared.

“Buck, I—” Steve began. But he didn’t finish, just put his head on Bucky’s shoulder.

“Stevie?”

“I won’t die, okay? I’ve survived the Depression with more conditions than other people get in a lifetime. I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll still worry,” Bucky said.

“Because you love me?” Steve breathed, not looking up, and the world stopped.

This was the question, wasn’t it.

Well, it wasn’t for Bucky, not anymore. But if Steve had to ask…

But Steve won’t be mad at him. He still had his head on Bucky’s shoulder, he was still holding his hand. 

“Yeah,” he said, eyes focused on the Christmas lights as they blurred more and more. “Yeah, I do.”

Steve squeezed his hand. “I love you too,” he whispered. 

The world began to move again.

“If I lose you, I—”

“You won’t,” Steve said firmly. “I can be careful.”

Bucky snorted through his tears. 

“What, I can! Or at least I can  _ learn. _ ” 

Even though he didn’t want to move, Bucky had to get a tissue out. Steve let go of him reluctantly, and his face fell when he saw that Bucky was crying. Then, by the time Bucky was done blowing his nose, his face was set into the determined expression Bucky was very familiar with.

“We don’t want to lose each other but we can’t stop fighting,” he said. “So we’ll learn to be careful.  _ Both _ of us.” He looked at the tree wistfully. “This can be our Christmas present, if that’d make you believe me more.”

Bucky didn’t really care much for Christmas, but Steve did, and Steve kept his promises.  _ That _ , Bucky believed.

“Okay,” Bucky said. "I believe you."

Steve grabbed his hand again. “I want you in my life,” he whispered, and when Bucky nodded, he gently pulled him into a kiss. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it took me so long to do this! I really hope you like the end result :)
> 
> Also I'm exhausted so I hope beyond hope that the ending makes sense on paper too, and not only inside my head XD 
> 
> Merry Christmas!


End file.
